Research Student PhD Success
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 09:30:00 BST
Research student Heidi Joao was awarded her PhD for the synthesis of potential anti-cancer molecules after a successful examination on 29th July.
Heidi was working on the synthesis of analogues of the naturally occurring fuligocandins and related compounds. Fuligo candida is a slime mould (often known as the dog vomit slime mould) that produces fruiting bodies that yield several molecules that have shown interesting activity in a cell signalling pathway (known as the TRAIL pathway) that induces apoptosis, programmed cell death, in cancer cells but not in normal cells. Heidi’s work involved the synthesis of new sulfur-containing variants of these natural molecules, part of which has just been published in the journal Tetrahedron.
Congratulations to Dr Joao and her supervisor Dr Karl Hemming.
